I have 4 Cs throughout high school so far. I got 2 Cs in my freshman year, one in Spanish 2(Semester 1) and the other in Intro to Comp Programming(Semester 2). I got 1 C in my sophomore year, in Chem H and another in my junior year, in Calc BC.
How badly do these Cs hurt my application and is there any hope of getting into a decently selective school?
What do you mean by “decently selective”? It depends on a bunch of things, such as what your other grades are. Check in Naviance whether other applicants from your school with similar GPAs and SAT/ACT scores were accepted to any of the schools in which you are interested.
While nothing is sure, it is accepted wisdom that it is very difficult to be admitted to colleges with acceptance rates below 25% or so with an unweighted GPA below 3.8. On the other hand, there are many amazing colleges with much higher acceptance rates who would be happy ta accept students with lower GPAs.
If you are applying for a STEM major, that C in Calc BC may hurt your chances as well.
MWolf said it perfectly.
CS is a competitive major. Most of the top 100 universities have very low acceptance rates for their computer science departments, even though their overall acceptance rate is 50%+. In the long term, it is better to do what you love, because in CS your skills will matter more than the name on your diploma. In the short term, it means you’ll have to do a lot of research to make sure you are applying to a good mix of match and likely schools. You can get into a very good college, but it is likely to be ranked outside the top 100.
Do you live in California? If so, go by the replies from your other thread regarding odds. If not, then you have only a small chance for OOS admission to UC schools.
I am a California resident, and as for my other academic stats, I have scored a 1500 on the SAT with a perfect score in math and 700 in english. I’ve also scored a 780 on the Math 2 subject test. I also have over 360+ volunteering hours and several extra-cirricular activities. Do I still not have a chance for schools such as UCSB and UCI?
How did you do on the AP calculus exam?
A junior year C in a math course is going to hurt you, no question, it could be slightly mitigated by a 5 on the exam. The C in chemistry is not helpful either. The C in Spanish probably won’t matter, especially if you got better grades in Spanish later on.
What’s your UC gpa? My son had two Cs junior year (Apush and AP Physics mechanics). His UC gpa was low (3.71), but SAT was 1520 and 800 in math 2. He applied to the all of the UCs for CS (not Riverside or Merced) and only got into UCSC. He was waitlisted at UCSD, but was accepted off the waitlist last week. I’m pretty sure he got into UCSD because he had multiple CS internships there.
My UC gpa, which is capped and weighted, is at 3.79.
At the current moment I’m still haven’t completed my junior year. But I’m unfortunately sitting at 74.3% in calc which I don’t think I can raise it to a B. That being said, I’ll be receiving the AP exam scores this July, and I feel like I did really well on it.
The UCs for CS are going to be tough with a 3.79, but you never know. Completely surprised that UCSD happened for my kid. Maybe you could try taking some community college math courses this summer to help raise gpa. My kid had a few dual enrollment math classes beyond Calc BC and I feel like that may have helped.
Thanks for the information! By any chance do you remember the names of the community college classes your son took?
He took linear algebra and discrete math this year because they were offered at his high school. He was going to take multivariable calculus and something humanities based last summer at the local cc, but he sought out the UCSD internships instead. I do believe now that at least UCSD is somewhat holistic.